Not far from the ramen shop, Rob sat on a low wall and something tickled his neck. He shimmied away from a row of plants and their pointy leaves and searched the sidewalk, but Nobu was already lost in the crowd. Stairs on the left led down to an Irish bar. Its open wall and basement level patio channeled conversation and music to the street. Down there, loud English-speaking men failed to outwit each other.

Rob's swank apartment building was nearby, but over here seedy clubs and bars dominated the neighborhood, even though ordinary people and families walked around freely. A man shoved a flyer at Rob. It advertised one free drink, cheap admission, and girls, girls, girls. Rob rejected it with a tight smile.

At least two communities, the privileged and the underclass, coexisted here. A lack of puritanical drive among the Japanese and a lack of indiscriminate violence among the criminals made it possible. The criminals focused their violence on the girls. The ones he had seen with Brian Keating did not look coerced, but Rob knew the deal. If minors were available, coercion played a part.

He would get a clearer idea in a couple of days, but Makiko misjudged him. Rob had never been a monster like Brian Keating. Nobu misjudged him too. Rob was committed to exposing any wrong doing, especially crime against minors, if it took place.

A passing woman made eye contact. He remembered her. In January, she had offered to give him a massage. He shook his head, and she made her way down the street, soliciting others. Rob was no prude but sometimes sex was so putrid. To hell with Keating and his ilk. Damn them for destroying sex.

Rob got off the wall and brushed off his butt. At times, he worried he lacked the patience to congeal in Tokyo for a year while waiting for Makiko's forgiveness.

But Roppongi could bear fruit in other ways too. Realistically, he probably could not stop a Hollywood powerhouse like Keating from molesting minors, but he might be able to figure out who supplied the girls and mess that up. The photographs he had would not end Keating's career, but they might spook Keating into handing over a suitcase of cash. Lord knows, his money could be put to better use. Nobu could accomplish something with it. And if blackmail backfired, the messy revelations might embarrass Keating. Makiko would learn that her father was not a pervert or predator, but a good guy. The world was so complex. Sometimes blackmail was justice, because injustice demanded radical action, radical solutions, and risks. Blackmail was crazy, but Rob's instincts had won him a Pulitzer, and he still trusted them.

Rob glanced up and down the crowded street. What was visible in Roppongi struck him as trite, untrue. The ordinary crowds on the sidewalk were a lie too. Keating's story festered hereabouts. Evil lurked below the surface. For the first time in a long time, Rob felt like using his camera.

***

Around 12:30 a.m., Rob tired of scouting Roppongi's side streets. The promising places, the ones most likely to harbor secrets, refused to admit foreigners, a problem for another day. He wandered back toward the subway station near his apartment building. On the way, he vowed to put Brian Keating out of his mind, at least until after meeting Makiko. He did not know how Yukiko would behave or what Makiko expected. Nervousness about that probably drove his obsession with Keating. He had to relax, exercise, eat well.

He passed a doorway opposite the subway station, steep stairs led up, and a purple wall on the second floor muffled dance music. Tomorrow, he would visit a temple or other quiet place. Tonight, a nightcap. Then bed.

He took the stairs two at a time. Inside, young Japanese people danced on a small strip of floor. A wrinkled Caucasian man with gray chest hairs stood in the aisle. Another old foreigner breast-gazed from a barstool. Boring. A quick walk through in case the place hid something interesting, then home.

Rob turned around near the bathroom at the far wall. Halfway to the exit, someone grabbed his arm. "You're Robert Pirone, the photographer." Her eyes were blue-green. Their shape and her skin tone probably meant one of her parents was Asian, one was Caucasian. She dressed young, high school young, in a black skirt and colorful blouse. He had not noticed her while walking through.

She gripped his arm tightly.

He wiggled it. "Yeah, I'm Pirone. How about letting me go?"

She looked at where her hand clenched him. "No." She smiled and pulled him closer, letting go just before he lost his balance. Then she laughed and tucked long strands of dirty blond hair behind her ears.

Wow, what a mismatch. A beautiful appearance and freaky behavior. Actually, it was a combination more common than eggs. "Nice to meet you," Rob said.

"I'm Cynthia." After he shook her strong hand, two giggling Japanese girls in low-neck tops stepped up and clung to Cynthia's sides, easing their glistening cleavage toward him. "These guys are my friends but they don't speak English."

No one had recognized him since he arrived in Japan. At least, no one had said so. He doubted she recognized him because he was a photographer, unless she was in the high school art class he spoke with in January at Makiko's school.

The old foreigner from the bar floated over. He had jowls of loose, elderly flesh. "Hey, man," he said, nodding at Rob and ogling the girls.

"Fuck off, grandpa." Cynthia jabbed his bird-like chest.

"Get lost," Rob added.

The skinny coot fled.

Cynthia grimaced. "I hate those creeps. Gross." She wiped her finger on Rob's arm. He could see the part in the hair on the top of her head. These girls had to be high school students. "My friends want you to sit with us," Cynthia said. The Japanese girls grabbed his hands. "Please?" Cynthia pointed at a booth.

"I came for one drink, just one," Rob said.

"Wow! Us too!" They pulled him toward the booth. Their excitement reminded him of Naoko and Fumiko's exhilaration when he showed up backstage at their concert. Only a liar would deny enjoying the attention, and Rob, well, Rob only lied when necessary.

The two Japanese girls put him on their side of the booth. Cynthia sat opposite. The booth was filled with knick-knacks: pocket books, cell phones, make-up kits. He had to move a plastic hair thing that dented his rump. He put it on the table. "Do you guys live here?"

"Ha," Cynthia said. The Japanese girls had their hands on Rob's shoulders. They were flirty. Cynthia - not so much, maybe. For her, needling him was a kind of brinkmanship, a test. She reminded him of Rachel. Her gruff manner was like Connie and Lynn too. Strong, independent women made him proud. He hoped his first impression of her was correct.

"Where do you go to school?" he said.

"Do you plan to report us to the principal?"

"No, you said I was a photographer. I thought you might have attended a lecture I gave."

"I go to school near here." Cynthia put a glass of beer in front of him. He had not noticed anyone bring it. "My friends want to know if you like Japanese girls."

"I like women, not girls." He sipped the awful yellow beer, suspecting that later he would piss out a liquid of similar composition. "Are you here a lot?"

Cynthia examined her phone. "No, we missed the last train. They're hoping to go with you."

"Go where with me?"

Cynthia smirked and said something in Japanese to her friends. They laughed and tightened their grips on him. "We'll end up on the street or with one of those creepy guys if you don't let us crash in your hotel room," Cynthia said.

The girls with Brian Keating came to mind. Did these girls know how dangerous it was to go with random men?

"Please," one of Cynthia's friends said in English. "Hotel." Her voice squeaked. Both Japanese girls nodded enthusiastically. Their costume jewelry jangled like wind chimes.

"You would go with one of those old guys?" Rob said. "Really?"

"Is that a shock?"

It sounded rhetorical. Maybe Cynthia wouldn't, Rob thought, but her two friends might. "I want nothing in exchange. Tell your friends." He drank the rest of his beer. After Cynthia spoke in Japanese to her friends, they pumped their tiny fists and reached for their knickknacks. On the way to his building, a ten-minute walk, Rob photographed the three of them.

Cynthia stared at the high rise. "You live in Japan?"

"I just moved here. My daughter's half-Japanese."

"Really?" Cynthia scrunched her eyebrows. "That should be big news here." She spoke to her friends, then him. "Do you know your building is famous?"

"I heard."

The security guards in the lobby glanced at them casually. Upstairs, Rob unlocked his apartment. The three girls ran to the window. Pointing at Tokyo Tower, they squealed in delight. Cynthia moved to the middle of the room and looked down the hall that led further into the apartment. "Are you afraid we'll wake someone?" she said.

"No, my daughter doesn't live here. I'm divorced." What was he thinking? He should have gotten them a cab.

He poured them water.

The universe was testing him, and he would pass. It did not take willpower not to touch girls.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Cynthia said.

"Yes."

Cynthia looked around the unfurnished room. "Liar."

Rob is thinking about blackmailing Keating and putting his money to better use. Do you agree with Rob that laws and rules aren't always justified?

Rob probably should have just paid for them to take a taxi. Do you think not doing that makes him suspicious?

Thank you for reading LOUD.

If you read my previous work and wondered about Rob and Cynthia, now you know how they met! There is more to see in the next chapter though.

FYI: In Chapter 9 of QUIET, Cynthia tells Makiko, Rob's daughter, that she bumped into him in Roppongi.